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I like snow. I really do. However, the piles of snow lining our driveway are now taller than I am (5’9″) by about a foot, so the idea of setting the whole mess on fire has a certain appeal despite the obvious dangers.

It’s been such a strange winter, just thick with climate change irony. I feel bad for you folks in the snow zone, getting hit with one storm after another. I remember bad winters growing up in Colorado, how sick you get of being trapped inside, of scraping and shoveling and sliding around and shivering. Yet at the same time I feel bad for us here, because this drought is super creepy, and it’s scary knowing that once Feb is over, there will be basically no more chance of rain for another year. I may prefer head-high snow drifts.

I’m not sure if this is the right place, but it’s the only place I can think of to ask:

I’m looking for a good forum online about gardening. I’ve found a few in searches but it’s hard to tell if they’re helpful / friendly / &c., and I think it’s usually better to get peoples’ recommendations on this sort of thing.

Where are you in South America? Tropical location? Mediterranean? If the latter, I’ve had thoughts of starting a forum for Mediterranean gardeners–so we could share info across continents (Mediterranean, Chile, South Africa, Australia, etc.). As they say, all gardening advice is local.

I’m along the western coast, too far inland to be coastal desert yet not high enough in the mountains to have a nice rainy season. It’s a good region for wines.

I’m only here until the end of the year, though, and I don’t have a place of my own in which to garden. I’ve been trying to help my parents with their yard for the past few years, but it’s a bit difficult to do when I’m all the way down here. I don’t have any of my usual reference books with me, either, which is why I’d like to try to find a forum for advice.

We don’t frequent any forums, so don’t have much advice for you. Maybe others will?

The only thing I can think of is greenwizards.org — it’s a forum dedicated to all of the “homesteading” topics, but they have a garden and food forum. It hasn’t been in action that long, so doesn’t have a huge backlog of posts, but it’s somewhere to start. We also like to read Garden Rant (gardenrant.com) for general garden talk–but it’s not a forum. As Erik said, university extension services have lots of good advice too — search “extension services” and the name of the state your parents are in. Here’s the one for Minnesota: http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/

‘Bout tearing down I-10 in New Orleans: I was for that when I first heard. “Man, look what they did to Treme.” However, it’s done. (It was that or the French Quarter, almost “and” the French Quarter.) It’s been decades and the African American middle class displayed by it? Many tend to live in New Orleans East and make use of that freeway to get into the city. I also don’t want through traffic – 18 wheelers and huge delivery trucks and oil and gas transport (we also have the second, fourth and fifth largest oil processing plants in the U.S.) – on neighborhood streets and they’re all neighborhoods here. Let’s keep it overhead, and off the parade routes. Especially now, it’s Mardi Gras!

Plaster of Paris and Chalk make mineral water? This is a whole new concept that I must study.

The idea of a public food forest is appealing. However, we would have to develop an elitist attitude in this town and only allow certain folk in and put razor wire around it because certain people in this town/county would strip it. It is a nice dream for here.

Hi, this might be obvious to other people but how is it legal to live off grid like the guy with the 14×14 cabin? I thought to build ANYWHERE in the u.s. you either.had to buy property outright or rent or lease or otherwise pay for it. I thought if you put up any kind of structure be it house, cabin, tent, or lean to you would be considered a “squatter” if the land wasnt yours? Anyone have any info? Thank you!

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